Our Library of Wishes

02

Note : going to refrain from using real person's name so i hope nobody gets offended. And come on guys, voteeee!

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✧.*  useless  *⁠.✧

Fame is a double edged sword. Hard to gain, harder to even maintain it and to earn fame along with respect is the toughest, not many people can achieve that consistently.

Zeeshan was sure that when people say not to judge a book by it’s cover, they forget to apply the sentiment towards a celebrity’s life. They see the glamour and fame and money and decide it’s all roses and rainbows. What could even go wrong in their life, in a life like his? All he had to do was deliver, make others happy by his work and till the time he manages to do that, he’s the apple of public's eyes and the moment he fails, he becomes their villain origin story.

Okay, maybe he was being a little dramatic.

But all he wants to convey is that a celebrity’s life is far from being perfect and it isn’t limited to not being able to roam around freely like a normal person doing mundane activities or unable to guard his personal life from scrutinizing gazes all the time. Or maybe it was limited to just that because at the moment, he only wanted to act on his whim and impulse and snap at the woman who dared to show him the middle finger and he couldn’t, because he didn’t want to attract attention towards him.

Any normal person would’ve done that unless and until he was an extremely kind, generous human and a believer of ‘forward your other cheek when you get slapped on one’. But Zeeshan Malik wasn’t and why should he let it slide when he just wished to apologize for a mistake that wasn’t even his. He didn’t push the kurti lady for fun. He, himself was a victim of another push. At the best, it was a chain reaction. He didn’t see the kid barging towards him and the next moment he knew he was getting off balanced on his feet awkwardly, shoving a lady beside him due to that and crouching down immediately to grab his shades that had slipped to the floor, put it back over his eyes and pull the hood of his sweatshirt that had fallen behind till it firmly covered his head. So much to not get recognized. And when he straightened up to address the kurti lady, she already had some other plans.

The audacity.…

Zeeshan’s attention was drawn when a kid tapped on his hip. He lowered his gaze and squinted his eyes when he saw It was the same kid who had pushed him. Maybe the child wanted to say sorry? Atleast, manners still exist in this world, he thought. But his bubble was soon broken when the boy who looked not more than seven years of age forwarded a jhumka towards him.

“This is yours.” The kid said and Zeeshan couldn’t decipher if it was a question or a statement.

Instead of replying in a straightforward way and denying the claim, he turned his head and pointed to his ear and then turned to the other side and did the same to his other ear. The boy looked at him weirdly as if already regretting his decision to speak to the grown-up man.

Zeeshan sighed when he understood that the child hasn’t comprehended a thing. “Does it look like I wear earrings?” He pulled at his empty ears to emphasize his point. “I don’t even have ear piercings.”

The boy stared at him with a blank face for a moment and then dropped the jhumka without any care. “Okay,” he shrugged and left the place leaving Zeeshan with his mouth agape.